


The Past That Follows

by teacup_tyrant



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Billy Bones/Abigail Ashe - Freeform, Flint shooting people, If You Squint - Freeform, but who's surprised there?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-20
Updated: 2016-08-20
Packaged: 2018-08-09 23:53:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7822123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teacup_tyrant/pseuds/teacup_tyrant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Billy and Flint happen upon a familiar face during their raids of the American coast. Takes place between season 2&3.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Past That Follows

Savannah was a quaint village like all the rest on the Atlantic coast: full of brick and mortar buildings and swarming with citizens of the British crown during the day. So, as usual, they waited out of sight of the shoreline until the cover of darkness. It would be another bloody night for the vanguard of The Walrus.

This night however, the people of the settlement offered little resistance. The news of Captain Flint and his crew's vicious attacks had been spread throughout the coastal territories. Those who resisted the pirates would be killed without question. It was the officials the captain wanted. As long as there was no opposition, there would be no needless death of ordinary citizens. 

For this reason, the vanguard's swords were nearly bloodless as they came up to the magistrate's luxurious mansion. Flint ordered the majority of the men to stand guard outside and only took Billy with him into the house. 

They advanced up the main staircase and down the darkened hallway, breaking and kicking doors in as they went. All of the rooms so far were empty. Captain Flint knew the magistrate would be in the farthest, most grand room anyway. But he crashed through the other doors anyway, to instill more fear in his waiting victims and to make a point, if anything. He left the last door for Billy and headed to the double doors at the end of the hall.

Billy halted a second when he noticed a tiny flicker of light coming from underneath the door. There was someone in that room. He tightened his grip on his flintlock and then kicked through the door. 

The small bedroom was bathed in a soft, yellow glow from a single candle flickering on a bedside table. In the far corner, a young woman stood pressed against the wall. She was in her rumpled bedclothes, as if she had only just bolted from her bed when she heard the two pirates wreaking havoc down the hallway. Her face was alight with fear.

Billy advanced into the room, his gun still raised, but it nearly slipped from his hand when he realized just who the girl was. Not only was he in shock of seeing her here in Savannah, but he was in shock over seeing her alive at all. When the Walrus had left Charles Town, the place was a smoking pile of rubble. No one spoke of the girl that they had all tried to hard to protect. It turned out she was only ever a tool for Flint to get what he really wanted. As usual. 

But Billy remembered her. He had wondered if she remained safe after the destruction of the town or if she had become a byproduct of Flint's rage, like so many others before her.

“How... How are you here? You were in Charles Town.”

Abigail shook her head slowly and spoke with a shaky voice. “He sent me away. My father. He sent me away on the morning of the trial. I think he was afraid of what I might say. That I might tell the truth about all of you.”

“The truth?”

She gulped, but looked him in the eye honestly. “That you are good men. Many of you... can be good men.”

He could hardly believe it. Here he was, pistol in hand, with Flint a room over about to shoot a man dead just for speaking out against piracy. And this young woman was telling him that they were good men. 

“I think you might find,” Billy started, “that you're part of the minority of people who think that in the New World.”

He could barely tell in the dim light, but he thought he saw the corners of Abigail's mouth twitch upwards. 

Muffled voices were heard through the wall from the room over. The end was coming soon. 

“You shouldn't be here,” Billy insisted, realizing that time was short. “He doesn't leave survivors. I don't know what he'll do if you sees you. You have to-”

A loud gun shot rang out, interrupting Billy's speech, followed by a loud thump. It was inevitable. He had been waiting for it.

Abigail gasped, putting her hand to her mouth. Neither of them spoke, their minds working out what had just transpired in the adjacent room. Flint had come to do one job and it had just been carried out. Only moments later, they heard slow boot steps leaving the room and coming to a halt outside Abigail's door. 

Flint followed Billy's eyes to the corner of the room and raised his gun as an automatic reaction. He squinted in the low candle light at the girl, still standing immobile against the furthest wall.

“We meet again, Miss Ashe.”

But he didn't lower his gun. Billy broke out into a sweat. The captain didn't actually plan on shooting her, did he? Billy wasn't sure. Flint had been a different person since leaving Charles Town and losing the Barlow woman. The horrible, revengeful blood lusting rampage Flint had been on for the past few weeks was unlike anything else he had seen. But Abigail was innocent in all of this and she always had been. Billy could not let it happen. Even if it meant defying his captain.

“Are you going to kill me too, Mr. McGraw?” She asked softly.

McGraw. The name visibly softened Flint and he finally lowered his pistol. Billy let out a quick breath of relief.

“I suppose I shouldn't be surprised to find you here,” Flint said, stowing his gun in his belt. “Peter Ashe may have been a traitor to his political allies, but he loved his daughter more than life. It's fitting that he had taken measures to protect you.”

The mist that had been forming in Abigail's eyes threatened to spill over. She had pushed most of her grief and thoughts of her father aside until this moment. Her parting with her father hadn't been a happy one. Little did she know it was the last time she would ever see him.

“However,” Flint continued, “you would be better off back in England than here in the colonies. This war is only just beginning. You shouldn't be caught up in.”

“Am I not already caught up in it?”

Flint conceded with a nod of his head. “All the same. I suggest you return to England. Just a bit of... friendly advice. There is nothing for you here. Not anymore.”

He turned to exit the room, motioning for Billy to follow. 

“I'm sorry,” Abigail whispered after Flint's retreating figure. He paused. She cleared her voice and spoke louder. “I'm sorry she's gone. It was wrong. It was all wrong. And I'm sorry about my father. He didn't turn out to be the man I thought he was.”

“Many of us don't,” Flint responded, his back to her. And then he was gone. 

Billy looked back at Abigail a final time before he left. Her cheeks were now wet with silent tears. In that moment he wished – more than anything – that he didn't have to follow Flint. He wanted nothing more than to reassure her that everything would be alright. That she was strong and had already lived through much more than most women, most highly bred women, would ever live through. That her staggering ability to see right through the tough facades of a pirate crew spoke volumes of her judgment and goodness.

But Billy wasn't eloquent with words or with women and he was probably wasting his time dithering in her doorway while he should be strategizing with his captain on the way back to the ship.

“You should take his advice,” he said simply. 

“Would you?” Abigail countered, surprising him. “Go back to England, I mean. If you could.”

“Return to England?” He raised an eyebrow, considering her question. “I couldn't. Even if there were no pardons. England has taken too much from me. From my brothers. It's not home anymore. It never will be again.”

“And that's the place you would have me return to?”

“It's different for you. You've no blood on your hands. Nothing that has happened here is your fault.” He glanced across the room into her eyes and repeated himself softly. “Nothing. And one day, you'll be living in London again and all of this-” he motioned to the room around them, “-will just be a bad memory.”

She wiped at her wet cheeks, trying for a small smile at Billy's attempt to comfort her. 

“Billy!”

A sharp call came from the end of the hallway. Flint.

Billy turned from the room, not wanting to keep his captain waiting any longer. 

“Perhaps it will be for you, too,” Abigail added, just as he was about to depart. “Just a bad memory.”

A small grin crossed Billy's face. “Not all of it was bad.”

Then he vanished into the shadows. Abigail remained standing in her corner, listening to Billy's steps fade away. And then she was alone again.

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written fanfiction in about 10 years and have since deleted everything I ever wrote at FFN. Soooo it's been quite some time. But Black Sails has dragged me back in because there are so many amazing characters and so much that we're left to speculate about. I know #ashebones will probably never be a thing, but that look between them on the ship over Flint's dinner table... it got me right in the feels. 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed. Let me know what you think. :)


End file.
